Fabulous5: Letter Of Understanding

The Fabulous Five Team
STEPS II Program
Solar or Wind Energy Educational Kit Design
The Petroleum Institute
PO Box 2533
Abu Dhabi, UAE
February 18, 2010

Dr. Lana El Chaar
Renewable Energy Research Group
Electrical Engineering Department
The Petroleum Institute
PO Box 2533
Abu Dhabi, UAE

Dear Dr. Lana El Chaar,
Regarding your statement, this letter is written to demonstrate the team’s understanding of all the requirements and specifications stated. The main objective of addressing you is to insure that all team members are well informed of the objectives and are ready to come up with a design that meets your standards. Moreover, this letter includes both your original and revised statement that was written to illustrate the limitations and constraints when designing.

After studying your statement, our team modified and revised it to make sure that the device to design is effective and efficient. The original statement stated to design a solar or wind energy educational kit to be used in class rooms for children between 10 and 12 years old.
This statement lacks some details, specifics and limitations as a result the team came up with following questions that were answered by our client:
· What is the exact budget of the design?
· What are the dimensions and the weight of the device?
· What is the gender of the targeted children?
· What are the materials to be used?
· Should it be assembled or to be assembled by the children?
· What types of schools (private / government schools)?

The new and revised statement states the following:
Design a solar or wind energy educational kit to be used in class rooms of both private and government schools for children both males and females between 10 and 12 years old. The design should not exceed 500 Dirhams. The design should be portable and light. The height should be between 30-60 cm. The Kit should be safe, durable, portable, and economically feasible. It should be built from materials that are locally available and environmentally friendly.

The following are the specifications deduced from your letter:
· The kit should be durable
· The kit should be portable
· The kit should be environmentally friendly
· The kit should be easy to assemble
· The kit should be safe
· The kit should meet the required tasks
· The kit should be affordable

From your statement, the following constrains are specified:
· The kit should not exceed 500 dirham’s
· The kit should not exceed a height of 60 cm
· The design should not be complicated

In order to meet the specifications and constrains that were studied by the team, an objective tree was designed (Appendix A). The purpose of this tree is to help the team demonstrate the objectives and achieve them easily. Moreover, a pair wise comparison chart was created to rank the project objectives according to their importance which will help us in understanding the requirements better. Additionally, this will assist the team in choosing the possible methods that could be used in building the design (Appendix B).

Our team recognizes that building an efficient and ideal design for the kit that meets and satisfies the client's needs involves hard work and effective communication between the team itself and the client. Perceptibly, this will require the team members to work in a friendly and innovatively team environment. Also, the team will always ensure that all the tasks and deliverables are done within the assigned deadlines and based on the client’s requirements.

Our team consists of five electrical engineering members with different skills. They have experience in programming digital circuits, where they have accomplished several projects with ADNOC Company. Moreover, some have excellent abilities to build electronic and feedback circuits. Finally, they are also capable of designing different component parts.

The team is well equipped, fully committed to the project, and is willing to put a 100% effort into accomplishing this design in a manner that satisfies the client's objectives and requirements. In case there are any objections, additions, or misunderstandings, we are more than ready to re-study the objectives and make the necessary changes. After the team receives the client's approval letter they will start working on the design where the client will be updated frequently on the design progress. We will also present a much more detailed proposal at next week’s project plan presentation. The following timeline shows the tasks that we will accomplish within the coming weeks.